


hangman slack your line / slack it just a while

by callmeverity



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Grace PoV, Light Angst, Oneshot, Soft and a little sad, Yearning, i just have a lot of feeling about terminator dark fate okay, idk man i wrote this in an hour, mentions of past-Dani, mostly just Grace being gay, nothing really happens, takes place during the scene where Dani fell asleep on Grace's lap in the truck, this is my first fic I've posted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeverity/pseuds/callmeverity
Summary: Grace has long associated the feeling of love with loneliness.That deep aching that stems from the gap below the remnants of cartilage and metal that tie her ribs together, that curls and hooks deep into bone and alloy. It hurts her like hunger, like the months after Judgement Day when she could feel the skin above her navel wane until nothing was left and scar tissue protruded from where it used to be protected.Takes place in the back of the truck driving to Dani's Tío's house. Grace coming to terms with this Dani becomingherDani. A lot of yearning.
Relationships: Grace Harper/Dani Ramos
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	hangman slack your line / slack it just a while

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from Hangman by Red Tail Ring. My first fic. CW: some canon-typical swearing.

Grace has long associated the feeling of love with loneliness.

That deep aching that stems from the gap below the remnants of cartilage and metal that tie her ribs together, that curls and hooks deep into bone and alloy. It hurts her like hunger, like the months after Judgement Day when she could feel the skin above her navel wane until nothing was left and scar tissue protruded from where it used to be protected.

That feeling was only reinforced by the woman she loved looking with eyes that had never seen her, and Grace having to bite her tongue to keep all of this _knowing_ from falling out.

 _Do you know how wounds heal?_ Dani had asked after Grace had undergone the last of her Augment surgeries and she’d thrown herself headfirst back into training far too early. Dani had knelt gently beside Grace, curled in pain on the floor below a punching bag. _It takes time._

The med team had told her, though Grace was never very good at remembering stuff like that, that it began with collagen fibers, overlapping proteins, binding together to form new tissues. The new stretched to fill the gap where the hurt once was, pale and tougher than before.

Dani, cradled in her lap now on the back of the pickup. Dani, with her hair so soft and long, Grace can’t even bring herself to touch though her hand rests centimeters away. Dani, her face so unmarred, sleeping in the soft summer light, the sun divided into pieces speckling her skin. Grace flicks off the overlay that monitors Dani’s vitals, the threat readings, the radio pings, and lets herself just look for the first time since she got there.

Excoriation. That is what Grace does to herself. A word from before. When Grace’s mom used to slap her hands apart when she would pick absently at the skin around her fingernails. It started as picking little pieces of her skin, then her confidence, her faith, her sanity. Dani, this Dani, is not a wound that has healed for Grace. This Dani is still far too pink and new.

But Grace is good at strangling her desires. Her hands are strong in that regard, from even before she was an Augment. She has had years and years of practice, watching her Commander and _wanting_. Her fingers have many a time wrapped around the slender neck of hope. Grace squeezes her wants with a fury. They squirm and writhe like Rev-7s but Grace is always merciless, does not heed until they lay limp. She is a soldier, after all.

Sarah is watching her. Grace can feel her eyes boring a hole into her, like she knows. Grace wants to tell Sarah to fuck off but she doesn’t want to risk waking Dani when she is like this, when she needs her rest. And this way Grace can tell herself what she feels right now is not selfish. That it is not just because she had never in her life seen her commander so vulnerable, so serene. That it is not because Grace can hardly breathe, she looks so beautiful.

Dani’s brow furrows and she shifts slightly, rolling her head so it rests gentle and cool against Grace’s hand. Grace’s spine goes rigid. The fear swells up so suddenly, a med-alert flashes in her side view. The fear she hasn’t been able to name of somehow polluting this time’s Dani with the toxins of her hands, the contaminants of the grief and dirt and gore of her metal-reinforced body. She swipes the ping away and works to manually regulate her heart rate again.

Sarah looks away, Grace can physically feel her high beam thousand-yard stare move off into the distance. Grace can’t tell if it is a kindness or a coincidence. She decides it doesn’t matter. If there is an edge of sadness, maybe a longing like her own, Sarah is good at concealing it.

When she looks down again at Dani, her forehead has smoothed. Grace bites the inside of her cheek, can taste the metal in her mouth. She moves the fingers of her left hand to comb through Dani’s hair, soft and slow, like she used to. In this moment, just for a moment, Grace pulls up the picture she has of her Dani, who had fallen asleep on her lap like this after nearly 24 hours of brutal Resistance strategizing. She overlays the image next to this Dani, and if she holds it just just right, it becomes _her_ Dani’s hair she gently smooths away from her face.

“Hey, Future Shit, guys in the cab say we’re almost there,” Sarah says, pushing her sunglasses back on.

Grace flicks the image away fast, and guilt crawls up and buries itself inside her stomach. She can’t do that again. She _won’t_ do that again. This is her Dani now.

Dani’s eyes flutter open, and when she looks at Grace, after the initial confusion, there is a spark of recognition. She smiles, big and beautiful. Grace, startled, smiles back.


End file.
